contested terrain

Jean-Luc Godard, and the recent charges of antisemitism

In a recent interview (German; English translation), French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard responds to the recent controversy over charges of antisemitism that was covered by the New York Times (“An Honorary Oscar Revives a Controversy”) earlier this month. His comments show a combination of avoidance, ignorance and philosemitism. Here is a response to two comments of his:

Once again, there is a debate in Jewish newspapers about whether or not you are an anti-Semite. Does this hurt you?
That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.

This is a packed few sentences. First, it is not “anti-Semite” that “means nothing,” but rather “Semite” that “means nothing.” “Semite” is a term developed by racial “theorists” to develop a biological conception of social-historical phenomenon, and to categorize “semitic speaking peoples.” Yes, Hebrew and Arabic speaking individuals speak semitic languages, but this does not make all Jews and Arabs are “Semites,” unless you truly believe in racial “theories.”
“Anti-Semitism” was however not directed at semitic speaking people, it was directed at Jews in particular (whether Hebrew-speaking ones or not), and was an entire world-view, aimed at modernizing Jew-hatred.
If Godard has beef with the term, he should take that up with those who invented it, which he also shows his ignorance about. It was not after the Holocaust and World War Two when the term “anti-semite” became “only applied to Jews,” but rather decades before these events, and was employed as a term to describe oneself, to give a modern appearances to an ancient animosity, and to develop a political program. (One can look up Wilhelm Marr and the Antisemiten-Liga, the “League of Anti-Semites.” )
The view that the term was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and World War Two dabbles in revisionist history and the accusation that Jews monopolize the term for themselves.
The term “anti-Semite” is “inexact” only if one believes the literal translation, and fails to consider the social-historical meaning of the term. Because this social-historical reality exists, the term does not “mean nothing.”
The question — which inquires into his relationship to Jews — is completely avoided in his psuedo-intellectual answer. Well done!

You once said you were a ‘Jew of cinema’. What does this mean?
I want to be together with everyone else, but stay lonely. I wanted to express this contradiction.

Of course, the philosemitic part of antisemitism. The desire to be the Jew one imagines the Jew to be.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 12:38 pm and is filed under antisemitism, philosemitism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.